Saturday, February 2

What Can Separate Us From the Love of Christ?

I grew up in Binghamton, New York, in a parish where the church was
the center of my life. I served as an altar boy and went to the Church
School, which was huge! We had a teenage Bible Study group; the church
had a basketball team (which I was not very good at). I ran the parish
library. We had altar boy practice every Saturday – we sang the Liturgy
and learned about serving the services – there were as many as 36 altar
boys at a time! So, almost every weekend, I was in church for Saturday
Liturgy, Vespers, Matins, and Sunday Liturgy… plus holy days, baptisms,
weddings, funerals and everything else that came with life in the
Church.

After high school, I went to college nearby and lived at home. I
never had the problem of wondering, “What do I do when I’m on my own?” I
worked out my class schedule so I could be at the Liturgy during the
week when there was one. Church was the place to be.I loved being in church, and I loved what I was doing in church –
especially serving in the Altar and learning about the Faith. So it was
only logical for me to want to become an imitation of my parish priest,
Fr. Stephen Dutko of blessed memory, so that I could have, and give,
that same kind of experience. I wanted to be like Father Stephen.And so I did. I went to seminary right after college. I got married
and ordained at 22 years old. I was assigned to my first parish, Saints
Peter and Paul Church in Homer City, PA, and I was raring to go.

Then it all changed. After 29 days of marriage, my wife and I were in
a car accident. She was killed instantly. I was in the hospital – in a
coma. I came out months later, confused and bitter, guilt ridden and
doubting. I was feeling all those kinds of things that a person would
feel in that horrific situation. Why did God let this happen? It had to
be somebody’s fault. All the confusion, all the anger, definitely made
me think about not being a priest anymore.However, I couldn’t conceive of not serving at the Altar. I could not
conceive of living my life outside of that experience that I had had
all those years. I just could not imagine that.So, rather than walk away from the Church, I did what I really needed
to do – and what I have counseled so many people, of all ages from the
youngest to the oldest, to do when we have these terrible, tragic
experiences. And that is to draw closer to Christ in the face of pain
and agony and loss. When I did that, it was not just an inner, “me and
Jesus” kind of experience. The Lord came to me, and began to heal me
through the faces, the words, the embraces, the love of His people: the
Church.

My spiritual father was one of them. He was tough on me. He told me,
“Your faith just has to kick in.” One of the questions I raised was,
“Where was God when all this happened?” And he said, “He was in the same
place the day that Debbie died that He was on Great and Holy Friday,
when His Son died.” He told me that even though that particular Tuesday
when we had the accident might have been a Good Friday to me… still,
Good Friday is not the end of the story… Pascha is. He reminded me that
Christ triumphed over death – and I had to believe that my wife was a
sharer in that victory and in the Resurrection.

So, I never left the Church. I never walked away from the priesthood.
My first parish as a priest became a replica of what I had experienced
in my home parish as a young person… and those people who I served as a
young widowed priest helped me nurse back to spiritual health – as well
as me helping them in their dark moments and in their difficulties. It
wasn’t just me, as their priest, taking care of them. Guided by God, as
His family, we cared for each other.

A famous Christian writer named Tertullian,
who lived less than 200 years after Jesus, wrote that “A Christian
alone is no Christian.” He meant that no one is saved alone… it takes
the Church to save a soul. Whenever I look back on that incredibly
painful time in my life, I am more and more deeply convinced that I
never would have survived – not spiritually, and maybe not literally –
without the Church. I do not mean just the Church as a building,
although that is the place where we meet and pray and even play
together. I mean, the Church as a community; the constant presence of
the people of God – my spiritual father, my parishioners, my brother
priests and their families, with all of the guidance, the prayers and
the love that they have to share.

Even though my hope for you who read this is that you never have to
go through what I went through, I pray that somehow, whenever you do
experience difficulties, doubts, and obstacles, by God’s grace, your
faith will “kick in.” I pray that you will seek, and find, the healing
and the love that Our Lord offers us in the faces, the embraces, and the
prayers of others — the love of Christ Jesus, shown within the
community of His Church.

One of my favorite quotes in the Bible is from St. Paul’s Epistle to
the Romans, in which he asks the question, “What can separate us from
the love of Christ?” (Rom. 8:35). And he answers that neither height nor
depth… nor life nor death… nothing can separate us from the love of God
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Thanks to the Church, I am living
proof that this is true.

Thank you so much for this post...He is my bishop, and being new I didn't know these things about him...I never heard his story...I am glad to have found this here...Knowing this makes me appreciate Bishop Michael's commitment to God and all of us even more.

Welcome

I am an Orthodox Christian woman who is happily married to an Orthodox priest. I am a mama to three little ones and I enjoy trying to create a peaceful and lovely life for my sweet family!
E-mail: emily at orthodoxws dot com